Golden Globe winner Son of Saul was aided in its production by Filmlight’s Baselight technology.
Baselight, which offers 4K colour grading technology, was implemented from Filmlight Baselight suites at the company’s Budapest facility, Magyar Filmlabor.
The production, which won Best Foreign Language Film, was shot on 35mm film, designed to give it a stark and understated look.
“We never wanted to make a ‘pretty’ film,” said director of photography Mátyás Erdély. “We were aiming for something very raw and very simple. It was treated with the utmost care by László, and I was very impressed by what we were able to accomplish.”
The film was shot using Kodak stocks in ARRI cameras. Post production at Magyar Filmlabor included a combination of traditional colour timing and digital grading to achieve the required look.
Erdély added, “Even in the DI we mainly used primary colour correction. We wanted to limit ourselves to the most essential tools.”
“The look itself may be very simple, but the way it was achieved was very sophisticated. We did not want audiences to even realise it had been graded, which required a really subtle approach.
“There was a lot of creativity and talent involved – but the outcome looks like there wasn’t!”
The 35mm negatives were digitised at 4K resolution by a FilmLight Northlight scanner, allowing the film’s producers to create a 4K digital master from which both 35mm release prints and 2K DCP files were derived.
